Butterflies
by Ansy Pansy aka Panz
Summary: Collection of one-shots relating to Kandy and Butterflies


Butterflies

**Summary: **Collection of one-shots relating to Kandy and Butterflies

**Disclaimer: **Seriously, Josh should give it to us now I think!

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Wow it's been a long time! I barely remember how to work for anything other than lurking and reading. I'm sorry I'm not back with anything more exciting or sizeable but I do have some things that would fit that bill still ticking over. A rather stressful and dramatic final year pushed out writing somewhat, but now I am un-gainfully unemployed I have been thinking about, and writing, fics and stories a bit more. Not sure how many of you I'm really talking to here these days but to those who are, I salute you and send my love. This was a little collection for Em for a tiny little butterfly book I sent when I was in the US. Enjoy.  
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I

Sandy hurried down the steps at the front the Law School, grinning broadly when he saw Kirsten stood waiting for him.  
'Hey,' he greeted, leaning in to kiss her but she seemed distracted, shifting on her feet so his lips met her cheek not her own.  
'Hi.'  
Something was wrong. She never passed up a kiss, rarely ever stopped one developing into a full make-out session, even if they were in public in broad daylight.  
'What's wrong?' he asked, studying her face.  
'It's nothing...really.'  
'Honey.' He said pointedly.  
She melted at the pet name. It was silly, she knew, but she still loved it when he called her things like that. Jimmy hadn't ever called her anything and her mom only used them when she was drunk. And of course the closest her dad every got was the despised Kiki.  
'There's something in the mailtruck,' she admitted in a small voice. This sounded so ridiculous.  
'Something?'  
'Yeah...something's making a weird noise.'  
'Well we shall go investigate,' he told her, taking her hand. 'My next class isn't till three.'  
'Were you gonna come home or stay on campus?' she asked, feeling bad.  
'Home,' he answered, smiling at their use of the word. The mailtruck parked jut off campus had been his home a while but Kirsten hadn't long moved in. It felt good to hear her call it home.  
'I thought you'd still be asleep and I'd have the pleasure of waking you up.' He waggled his eyebrows suggestively.  
'I couldn't sleep any longer, the noise creeped me out.'  
'What sort of noise is it?' he asked as they walked in the direction of the truck.  
'Um...it's scuffly.'  
'Scuffly?'  
'Yeah...kind of frantic movement...scrabbling.'  
'Hmm...'  
'It's a rat isn't it?' she said, panic obvious in her voice. 'Oh God, I've moved into a rat-infested automobile with a man I've barely known twelve months! What was I thinking?'  
'Hey!' He complained. 'That man happens to be standing right here.'  
She looked up guiltily. 'Sorry, I didn't mean...I just _hate_ rats.'  
'I don't think it's a rat.'  
'You don't know!'  
'Where would a rat be? You would have seen it? Did you see anything?'  
'No,' she admitted. 'What is it then? Cockroaches? Scorpions? Mice?!' Her voice hitched with each idea.  
Sandy shrugged. 'We have bug spray or we can move the truck.'  
'That's not the point! It's inside! There could be a _racoon_ inside our _home_!'  
'A racoon? Seriously Kirsten?'  
'Yes! And you don't seem to give a damn!'  
'I'm coming aren't I?'  
You were coming anyway.'  
'I like being your wake-up call.'  
'You like getting back into bed, waking me up and having sex more like.'  
'That too,' he said with a grin that faded as she glared at him and carried on talking.  
'There is no way I am sleeping or anything else in that sorry excuse for a bed until we've exterminated.'  
'Fine, whatever,' he agreed grouchily, not looking forward to having to clean out the truck. They walked the short distance left in silence, Sandy hoping this wasn't a fight and Kirsten deciding whether it was.  
'I'm not going in, she told him once they were outside the back doors.  
'Okay.'  
Sandy unlocked the truck and climbed in. He stood for a moment, listening. 'I don't hear anything.'  
'Just wait,' she said crossly. So Sandy waited. He had circled the truck three times and flopped on the bed for a while before he heard it. A very slight scuffling, scraping sound which stopped as abruptly as it had begun.  
'I really don't think it's a rat,' he repeated, getting up and trying to work out where the sound had come from.  
'What is it then?' Kirsten called nervously from outside.  
'It sounds like it might be an insect,' he said having just heard it again.  
'Oh no,' came the response. 'It's cockroaches isn't it?' She sounded decidedly panicked but Sandy was focussed on finding the noise and didn't answer. Plus, sometimes, just sometimes, his girlfriend frustrated him. Cockroaches were not the end of the world. He knew this having lived in plenty of infested apartments the last twenty-three years. Kirsten however, had met her first only the previous and had, what Sandy considered, the most ridiculous freak-out. He loved her but sometimes the life she'd once led felt like the biggest barrier to them to really making it. Cockroaches were only one of many things, many, many things that they were worlds apart on. Suffice to say he really, really didn't want it to be a cockroach. Not only would Kirsten have a fit but she'd want to call an exterminator (despite the fact he was pretty sure they didn't do house calls to stationary vehicles), spring-clean the truck and refuse to stay there until it was done. Sandy liked waking up with his girlfriend. There was no way he was losing that over a stupid bug.  
He pulled the small crate they used as a bedside cabinet away from the wall and the scrabbling sound intensified but he realised it was most definitely wings fluttering frantically that was making the noise. He told Kirsten so but it didn't really help.  
'Wings? Bird or moth?'  
'Moth probably,' he said, tugging the crate further out.  
'Ew.'  
'What's wrong with moths?' he asked, catching sight of the creature and reaching down to coax it out with a cupped hand.  
'They're all gross and fluttery and blind and have weird antennae and spindly legs.  
'Bit like you then,' he joked, thinking of the various ways those long legs could wrap around him.  
'I am nothing like a moth,' she complained.  
'What about a butterfly then?' Sandy asked as the creature fluttered upwards, opening its wings and proving itself to be one.  
'Huh?'  
'Ca I compare you to a butterfly?' he asked, wafting the insect towards the open doorway.  
'How is this relevant?' Kirsten asked.  
'Look up, he told her, coming to the door as it finally fluttered free.  
'Ohh,' she said softly. 'It was a butterfly.'  
'Yup,' he responded curtly, extending an arm to help her into the truck.  
'I'm sorry,' she sighed, pulling him down to her lips. 'I'm sorry I was a bitch over a butterfly.'  
He could never stay mad long with his lips on hers, her lithe, petite body pressed up against his. He reached down and picked her up, smiling into her mouth as her legs wrapped around him, the pressure against him deliciously increased. He tugged the doors closed and stumbled towards the bed, hands wandering to her ass, hers tangled in his hair. 'You can make it up to me!'

II

Kirsten gasped from her position on the couch, not very loudly but enough so that Sandy turned back around rather than continuing on to the kitchen where he had been sent to find Jell-O. He was pretty sure they didn't have any Jell-O, particularly not the lime kind Kirsten had always considered disgusting. That is until she became pregnant and everything he ever knew about her seemed to fly straight out the window. The ice queen turned into a crier, the hugger into someone who hated to be touched and the hater of all things lime flavoured (except lie itself, of course, a G and T wasn't right without a slice) into a lime lover. They didn't have any and although he knew it he knew better than to say so. He would dutifully go check and then make the trip to the store without skipping the first step because Kirsten had always been a little bit scary when she got angry and pregnant and hormonal she was downright frightening! But then she'd given that surprised gasp which he couldn't quite decode and the lime Jell-O was forgotten, by him at least, as he turned, worried that something was wrong.  
But Kirsten was smiling. She looked up at him, eyes alight, glimmering with the start of tears, her hands splayed across her baby bump.  
'They moved!' she choked out. 'He or she moved! I felt...I...they...I felt them!'  
The enormity of the moment got the better of her and the tears pooling in her eyes spilled over.  
'It's...real.'  
Sandy was beside her the moment she began to cry happy, happy tears, pulling her close and edging his hands between hers and her stomach.  
'I don't feel anything,' he said after a moment, disappointment clear in his voice.  
'It's too early,' she soothed, trying to kiss him. 'It's barely anything yet...'  
'But you felt...'  
'I felt the tiniest of movements, just a flutter, not a kick or anything.'  
'You still felt it.'  
He looked so pouty Kirsten wanted to laugh but she didn't.  
'She was just turning over or something, that was all...'  
'Or he,' he countered.  
'Or he.'  
'I just wish I could feel it.'  
'In a few months you'll be very, very glad you can't feel it,' she pointed out.  
'How long till I'll be able to feel something?' he asked, undeterred.  
'Just a few more weeks,' she told him, kissing his head.  
He sighed. 'I just...want to know what it's like,' he said quietly. 'I know it's stupid.'  
'It's not...'  
'I shouldn't be jealous, it's just you have this bond...'  
'You have a bond too,' she tried to tell him as he shook his head, insisting it wasn't the same.  
'Sandy,' she chided. 'You do. You're here, you do things for us, you talk to him or her. You're the one that makes me feel better...when I'm sick and can't eat you calm me down, you calm them down, talk to them and I feel better. That means something. There's something there. And I bet when they are keeping me up kicking all night, your voice will be the thing that settles them.'  
'You think so?'  
'I do. You're their father Sandy, whether you carried him or her is irrelevant.'  
He smiled a little at that, pulling her onto his lap, arms sliding round to her bump and stoking it. He could feel her relax into his embrace and his smile widened.  
'So if it's not a kick what is it then?' he asked.  
'Just a movement, maybe just turning over,' she said again.  
'But what does it _feel_ like?' he pressed, desperately wanting to know.  
Kirsten hesitated.  
'It's...hard to explain.'  
He sighed softly and she continued.  
'It's something and nothing. A sensation of movement but right inside... It's in in me but it's not me... It's not like it's part of my body moving or reacting to something, it's separate. But it's barely there...just a flutter.'  
'A flutter?'  
'Yeah...light, like wings.'  
'Bird wings?'  
'No, lighter.'  
'Are you sure it's not just gas?' he asked teasingly.  
Kirsten hit his arm. 'Shut up!'  
'Just saying!'  
She stuck her tongue out at him. 'Hey, what happened to my lime Jell-O?'  
'You still want that?'  
'No, baby does,' she said wickedly, knowing he never refused when she played that card.  
'I don't think we have any...' he began tentatively.  
Kirsten's face fell before lighting up again. 'Well, if you're going to the store would you pick up some of those cocktail cherries? You know, the stick red ones in the tub...!'  
'Baby wants those too?' Sandy asked.  
'No,' she said grinning. 'Those are for me!'  
He exhaled gently, not quite a sigh because he was happy to make the trip to furnish his wife and child with their every last desire, but a slow breath that acknowledged the request reluctantly because he was loath to move. He sat a moment longer, breathing in this moment before kissing the top of her head and shifting her back onto the couch.  
'I'll be right back,' he told her, checking his pants for his wallet and keys as he turned to leave.  
'Sandy,' she said, stopping him in his tracks again.  
'Yes honey?'  
'It's like a butterfly,' she told him, 'the fluttering. I don't know if I think that just because I'm excited and nervous at the same time but that's what it feels like.'  
'A butterfly?' he repeated.  
'Yeah.'  
'Thank you.'  
'For what?'  
'Having my baby...sharing... I love you.'  
'You're welcome, she said smiling. 'Butterfly and I love you too.'

III

Sandy took Seth's little hand in his as they waited to cross the street to the park. Seth bounced excitedly beside him; it was the first time they had made it to the park. Seth had been promised a trip ever since they had driven past it on their very first day in Newport but unpacking, enrolling Seth in his new kindergarten and sorting out work had taken precedence. Now, nearly two weeks since they had left Berkeley in a volley of tears Seth was getting his wish.  
The gigantic house was fully furnished, with their own things dotted about the great expanse in a way that made Sandy feel homesick. He had a good job at the Newport PD's office, sorted in one easy transfer, and Kirsten was earning twice as much as both of them had combined in Berkeley. But that didn't mean he was happy. The Berkeley house, their very own house of dreams was sold. No longer under a six month rental agreement but sold. Kirsten's mom was terminally ill and he didn't have the heart or the strength to keep Kirsten and his family in the North when she desperately wanted these last few months with her mom in Southern California. So here they were in Newport, somewhere Sandy was sure could never be home.  
He felt Seth tugging on his hand and realised the lights had changed. They crossed the street and entered the park, Seth scampering off the moment his father finished warning him to be careful and not go further than the playing field ahead and the playground to their left. He found a bench nearby and watched his son run full tilt across the grass and head back again, stopping every now and then to inspect something in the grass or look up at the wide expanse of blue, blue sky. So far Seth had loved being able to play outside every day, never trapped inside by rainy weather, loved having a pool, but Sandy was worried for when the novelty wore off and his son begged to go back home. He felt like doing it himself, would be if they were here for any other reason. Not that they would be anywhere near Newport for any other reason. Two weeks and already things were changing. Seth was having nightmares; terrified of the ridiculously large house they lived in and Kirsten was absent. She was meant to be here right now but she wasn't.  
'Swings Daddy,' Seth yelled, suddenly beside him and he stood up, following Seth to the swings and starting to pus. He listened to his son's chatter even as he worried about his wife. He was full of his worry these days, for his mother-in-law, his family, his son, his wife, their relationship...the list went on.  
'You like Newport right Seth?' he asked.  
'Yeah, it's okay,' Seth replied, dragging his feet so the swing slowed. 'It has a bigger playground.'  
Sandy smiled and stopped pushing so Seth could run towards the climbing frame and slide. Sandy found another bench expecting Seth to be a while but he reappeared not long after, seemingly deflated. He climbed onto the bench and leant against his father dejectedly.  
'What's wrong buddy?'  
'I'm not big enough for the monkey bars,' he complained.  
'You want me to help?' he asked, glancing at the equipment and seeing a woman holding up a small boy so he could pretend to do the bars.  
'No!' Seth said crossly and Sandy frowned.  
'I could lift you up...make you taller...'  
'No.' Seth said again. 'I don't want you to.'  
Sandy looked from his son to the monkey bars and back again before realising what was wrong.  
'You want mommy bud?'  
Seth nodded and Sandy sighed. He knew Kirsten was struggling with the reality of her mom having terminal cancer, of being back in Newport and starting a new job in a field she'd always rejected but throwing herself into work wasn't helping their family settled into their new life in this godforsaken town.  
'She's probably just running late. Shall we give her a call?'  
He pulled out the shiny new cell phone Kirsten had insisted they both needed and pressed the second of the only three numbers he had in it. It rang for a long time and he was about to hang up, frustrated, when a breathless Kirsten answered.  
'Hello?'  
'It's me.'  
'Hey.'  
He could hear the smile in her voice and felt bad for being annoyed but couldn't help it.  
'Where are you?'  
'At the office...where are you?'  
'At the park. We promised Seth, Kirsten.'  
'The meeting ran late. I only got out as you rang.'  
'So you're on your way?'  
'I...'  
The hesitation told him everything and the look on his dad's face told Seth all he needed to know too. He slid off his dad's lap where he had been eagerly reaching for the phone and sat miserably on the grass.  
'I guess we'll see you at home.' Sandy said curtly. 'If you even make that.'  
'Can I talk to Seth?'  
'He's upset,' he hissed. 'You're not gonna be able to make this better right now.'  
'Sandy...' she began but he'd flipped the phone shut, disconnecting the call.  
'Seth,' he said softly, wishing Kirsten could see just how upset their little boy was. 'Seth, do you want to go on an adventure?'  
There was no response but Sandy knew he was listening.  
'We're intrepid explorers, trekking across this unchartered land,' he gestured to the park, seeing Seth watching from the corner of his eye. 'We shall find new species and meet ravenous beasts,' he continued, pointing to the other people in the park.  
'Okay,' Seth agreed, getting to his feet and tiptoeing across the grass. 'But I'm the leader.'  
Sandy smiled and followed the six-year-old explorer around the park, pointing out 'new' animals and making up stories.  
By the time they got back home Seth was all smiles again but Sandy wasn't ready to forgive Kirsten that quickly. She was at the door to greet them and Seth jumped into her arms.  
'We saw flutterbies mommy!' he said excitedly.  
'Did you honey?' she asked, smiling and holding him close.  
'What are flutterbies?' she mouthed at Sandy, not wanting to assume Seth meant butterflies and get into trouble.  
'Maybe you had to be there,' he told her, bypassing the usual kiss, always at least on the cheek, if not on the lips, and stalked into the kitchen.  
Kirsten sighed and watched him go, closing her eyes against the hot tears that were pricking her eyes and threatening to fall. She was so tired and overwhelmed right now and she really needed Sandy with her, not against her.  
'You're my flutterby,' she told the little boy in her arms. 'I love you and I'm sorry.'

IV

Kirsten had butterflies that first night as she was waiting for Sandy to bring in this criminal boy he'd picked up. In all his years as a PD he'd never done it. Never brought work home in such a literal sense and though she'd joked about it sometimes, it was a shock when it finally happened. If he was, after all this time, it was important, it wasn't a dangerous kid. She trusted his judgement, trusted him, but she was still nervous. This was her home, her Seth, and Sandy had met this kid a few hours ago. But it hurt when Sandy looked at her like that, like he didn't recognise her as the woman he married, when he said she'd changed. It burned when he really thought she was so cold-hearted that her first thought was for her personal property, not the boy's wellbeing and the things he'd need to spend the night. So she'd pushed the butterflies down as best she could, busying herself finding sheets and towels and snacks, but she knew her nerves were still evident in her voice and movements. They were stiff, short and she could see it made the boy, if possible, more tense. But she had to be wary, had to. Sandy, for all his killer instincts in the courtroom, was human, fallible and a bleeding-heart liberal. She had to keep perspective for the both of them.  
She slept badly that night, the butterflies wild in her stomach, half nervous about their safety, half worried about the child with the old-soul eyes her husband had brought home. Because he was a child. No matter what he thought or how he acted or what he'd been through, he was a child. And Kirsten, whatever Sandy might think, would never have refused a child in need a place to stay.  
Their wing beats waxed and waned throughout the weekend and the days that followed; when she saw the budding friendship between the boy and her son, when she saw the bruises on Seth's face, when she sent Ryan home, when there he was, back in her house again. But they relaxed a little when Seth smiled and laughed and left the house with a _friend_, when Ryan made breakfast, when he stood there uncertain, embarrassed, helpless, unhappy, abandoned and apologetic. They didn't flap as hard as she expected when the fire at the model home was discovered. She was more angry at Luke, Luke who bullied her son and had endangered a kid he didn't even know, set fire to a model home and walked away scot free while the quiet boy with her blue eyes was back in Juvie. The butterflies beat their tattoo most when thinking of how to explain the mess to her dad.  
There was little she could deny Seth, so despite the fact she thought her nerves might make her sick on the way to Juvie, they went. Seeing Ryan there, having him stand up to that lecherous man twice his size, protect her, made the butterflies flop into a heavy, dead weight in her stomach. He couldn't stay here. He was a child, a good child. Bringing him home took away the sick feeling but she was still a little nervous. He was a stranger and this time _she'd_ brought him home and she couldn't change her mind. He was her choice, her responsibility even if they did find his mom. But the feeling was light, not fully fledged butterflies. And when Ryan's mother left, breaking his heart and her own a little too, and she led him gently into the kitchen, announcing that he was going to stay with them now, they flew away.

V

'What is _that_?' Sandy asked, coming home to find a large stencil on the kitchen table.  
'It's a butterfly,' Kirsten told him.  
'I can see that, what's it doing in our kitchen?'  
'It's part of a set,' she told him happily, splaying two more stencils he hadn't yet noticed out into a fan before laying each of them carefully back on the table in a neat, Kirsten line so that three butterflies, each a little smaller than the last, were visible.'  
'Again, why?'  
'You're grumpy today,' she said, standing up and running her fingers through his hair before kissing him. 'What's wrong?'  
'Nothing,' he groaned, pulling of his shoes and padding over to the fridge to extract a beer, '...everything.' He sighed. 'I have so much work to do, I have a zillion lecture plans to write, I may be in over my head, my office has no AC and I missed you all day.'  
She smiled at that, leaning in to kiss him and taste the beer. Sometimes it hurt so bad that she couldn't just pop a cap and join him for one. Especially now they were back in Berkeley where beer had been their drink of choice and something they'd missed and thought of fondly back in Newport. She pulled away quickly so he wouldn't guess and worry. She was fine. It just hurt, however many years it might be, no matter how much of a good distraction Sophie was.  
'I missed you too,' she told him. 'You are gonna be a great lecturer, don't worry, you have plenty of time before the semester begins and I'll buy you a fan!'  
'Thank you,' he said before glancing around the kitchen.  
'Sophie's in the lounge,' she answered before he could ask. 'It's cooler in there.'  
Sandy immediately headed for the other room, returning moments later with their baby daughter in his arms.  
'Look who didn't want to nap anymore,' he said excitedly.  
'Sandy,' Kirsten chided. 'I literally only just got her down. If she's crabby and over-tired tonight you're dealing with it.'  
Sandy didn't respond, busy blowing raspberries at Sophie who was laughing as she lay on the kitchen table.  
Kirsten tugged her stencils to safety and waited for her husband to get all his baby talk out his system.  
Eventually he looked up again and returned to his original topic.  
'So what's with the stencils?'  
'I want to decorate Sophie's room.'  
'With butterflies?'  
'Yes.' Her tone left no room for argument.  
'O...kay...where'd you get them?'  
'I drew the outlines and then took them to the store and they cut the shapes into the stencils for me.'  
'You're so talented,' he said, his eyes smiling at her.  
'It's just a butterfly...'  
'Better than mine. But why the sudden desire to decorate?'  
'I feel bad,' she told him. 'Seth had a proper nursery...well, the best we could manage and Sophie hasn't...we've been so busy with moving and stuff...'  
'That's okay,' he tried to reassure her. 'I'm sure she doesn't realise; she has all the important stuff.'  
'It's not about cribs and mobiles Sandy!' she snapped. 'It's about my little girl having a room that's her own.'  
'Okay, okay, I get it,' he backtracked. 'I just meant you shouldn't feel bad. We'll get the house the way we want to eventually.'  
'I know,' she sighed. 'I'd just like to start with Sophie's ...make a proper bedroom.'  
'Okay sweetheart, we'll pick paint at the weekend if you like.'  
She nodded and Sandy bounced Sophie.  
'How's that sound baby girl? You want a pretty new bedroom? With butterflies and lots of icky pink paint no doubt!'  
Sophie giggled at her father while Kirsten glared.  
'I was thinking the walls could stay that rose colour but I'd like lilac and deep purple for the stencilling.'  
At this Sandy nodded, knowing better than to argue, and that is how he ended up spending the next weekend painstakingly spraying butterfly patterns across four walls in his house.

VI

Kirsten lent against the doorframe of the living room watching Sandy read to their baby daughter. Sophie was on his lap as he read from a book he must almost have known by heart by then. He had read it almost every night since Sophie began kicking and stopping Kirsten sleeping. It had taken fifteen tries to find a story that made Sophie settle and _The Very Hungry Caterpillar_ was it.  
'In the light of the moon a little egg lay on a leaf,' she listened to his voice as Sandy recited, smiling at the baby. Kirsten smiled too. She loved seeing Sandy like this. He was so adorable, doting on his daughter, ad her too. She was tired, the last few months had been, if possible, more exhausting this time around almost twenty years later. But at the same time she really was revelling in it all. She was so much more relaxed and able to enjoy things more this time. The crushing first-time mother panic was absent and even though it had been a long time she was finding she remembered a lot more than she thought. Sandy was still the natural he always was but this time she enjoyed and appreciated it even more. Moments like this were so precious, the kind of memories she never expected to be making again. But it was really true. Sandy was sat in their living room with their baby in his lap. She had thought she was closer to being a grandmother than a new mother (closer not close. God forbid!) and there she was with a daughter. A daughter!  
The doorbell rang, pulling her from her reverie. They weren't expecting anyone. Opening the front door her curious eyes met the most welcome sight. There, grinning o the step were her sons!  
'Ryan! Seth!' She pulled them into a two-armed hug. 'What're you doing here? Not that it's not great you're here! Come in, come in,' she rambled, ushering them in.  
'I hadn't seen Soph in too long,' Seth told her. 'Ryan said she's grown heaps and I was missing out. I don't want her to forget me.'  
'She's in the lounge with your father,' Kirsten replied.  
'I'm just along for the ride,' Ryan said with a sheepish smile. Kirsten put an arm around his shoulders and drew him to the kitchen.  
'That's good too,' she said. 'You know I'd have you living here if I could.'  
Ryan chuckled. 'I know, but you wouldn't want me to miss out on form life would you?'  
'Nooo,' Kirsten admitted, boiling the kettle and taking a Pepsi and Ryan's favourite root beer out the fridge. She handed it to him. 'Thanks for bringing Seth home...again! I know how all-consuming college can be but I hoped he'd be back sooner.'  
Ryan touched her arm and she smiled. 'Major brownie points for this, on top of not fleeing to the opposite side of the country in the first place!'  
Ryan laughed and picked up the tray of drinks and cookies, heading for the lounge. There, Seth was swooping Sophie through the air, making her laugh.  
'You know she was almost asleep and on her way to bed before you guys showed up,' Kirsten chided, but gently, loving the light in Seth's eyes as he played with his little sister.  
'He hasn't seen her in months,' Sandy shushed her. 'And how do you know she was almost asleep? Were you spying on us?' he teased.  
Kirsten blushed. 'Maybe!...Tea?' she handed him a steaming cup.  
'Thanks,' he said, turning to Ryan who had sat down on the sofa and asked about a recent game. Kirsten joined them on the sofa, sipping her tea and watching Sophie and Seth. Her son, unaccustomed to the weight of his sister soon tired and went to flop in a chair with her but Kirsten scooted up and patted the space beside her. 'Join us.'  
'I may not have quite gained the freshman fifteen,' Seth joked, 'but I'm not that small.'  
'Oh shush,' she told him, 'Ryan, Sandy, scoot up!'  
They complied and Seth sat down, Kirsten pulling her children towards her in a one-armed, sideways hug. Seth lent his head on his mother's shoulder, his arms gently looped around Sophie, her eyelids beginning to droop once again.  
'How about finishing that bedtime story?' Sandy suggested, resting an arm along the back of the sofa and round Ryan's shoulders.  
Kirsten smiled in agreement, so very happy to have her whole family between her and her husband. His eyes met hers and he smiled too, similarly content. He flicked open the book and began to read, finally finishing with 'and he was a beautiful butterfly.'

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